E2M8: Tower of Babel (Doom)

E2M8: Tower of Babel is the eighth and final map of The Shores of Hell in Doom. It features a boss battle with the cyberdemon. This level was named after a tower to the heavens that God destroyed in the Bible. It was designed by Sandy Petersen and it uses the music track "Nobody Told Me About Id". This level should not be confused with the Jaguar level of the same name, MAP16: Tower of Babel.

In the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn versions of Doom, this level is the ending part of Inferno instead, replacing E3M8: Dis.

Essentials
You start the level in a small octagonal room. Pick up the megaarmor here before you do anything else. There is a short pillar in the center of this room with a switch on each of it four sides. Pressing one causes the stairs in front of it to raise. Press all four switches. Walk up any of the four sets of stairs until the wall with the crucified baron of Hell ahead of you opens, but do not walk through yet. Open the three remaining baron-walls in this manner as well -- this allows you to re-enter the starting area if you need to. Once they have all been opened, exit to the huge outdoor area. The doors will close once you step out, but it is possible to quickly backtrack to the start before they finish closing.

On the Hurt Me Plenty skill level and above, there are a number of lost souls outside; you might want to destroy them so they do not get in your way later, but it is not necessary. Either way, walk around the building until you find the cyberdemon -- or he finds you. Use the pillars for protection if you need to. He occasionally wanders into one of the four supply rooms adjoining the main building; lure him out if necessary. In addition to a rocket launcher, these four rooms contain a total of 150 rockets and a pair of soul spheres to replenish you. Do not be afraid to waste ammo, because this is the last level of the episode anyway. As there is no BFG9000 in The Shores of Hell, and you have plenty of rockets available, your battle with the cyberdemon will probably be a rocket-rocket fight. If you have a plasma gun with energy cells, do not hesitate to use it. Mastering circlestrafing will greatly increase your effectiveness.

Once the cyberdemon dies, the level and episode both end.

Secrets
There are no official secrets in this level.

Speedrunning
As this level does not contain official secrets, the NM 100S category is redundant.

Current Compet-n records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 6, 2020.


 * 1) Compet-n does not maintain UV speed and UV -respawn competitions for this level because of the runs' equivalence with UV max.
 * 2) This is possible if the cyberdemon becomes "asleep," which can be done by not shooting, getting the cyberdemon to infight with a lost soul, and then going out of the cyberdemon's line of sight so that it does not retarget the player after killing the lost soul. When the cyberdemon is in the sleeping state, it is possible to manipulate lost souls to attack it from the back without it awakening (which would only happen if the cyberdemon goes into its pain chance state). This would make pacifist possible, though it would require a large amount of luck as it would require many hits on the cyber that do not result in pain chance. This is also possible non-assisted by getting the cyberdemon stuck in one of the four central rooms with a lost soul on the other side inside the central room with the four switches.

Current DSDA records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on August 1, 2022.

Player spawns
This level contains seven spawn points:
 * 1) facing north-east. (thing 59)
 * 2) facing south-west. (thing 60)
 * 3) facing north. (thing 61)
 * 4) facing east. (thing 62)
 * 5) facing south. (thing 63)
 * 6) facing west. (thing 64)
 * 7) facing south-east. (thing 65)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Technical information
A par time of 30 seconds is defined in the source code, but never actually displayed. Some source ports do generate intermission screens for the original boss levels which include their par times.

Trivia

 * On the Episode 2 intermission screen, the tower can be seen being built as the player progresses through the episode.
 * The "Tower of Babel" is an ironic Biblical reference (Genesis 11:1-9). The in the Bible is a physical pathway to the Heavens constructed by man and destroyed by God. In Doom, the level is a pathway to Hell, constructed by demons and destroyed by a man, as explained in Episode 2's ending text.
 * This is the first level in Doom to not include any imps; while E1M8 includes imps, they are only behind the teleporter.
 * This is also the only level in the episode to not have a plasma gun available.
 * In the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports of Doom, this level occurs at the end of the Inferno stages, taking place chronologically after E3M7: Limbo. Several mancubi also populate the main courtyard where the player does battle with the cyberdemon, unless the difficulty is set to I Am A Wimp or Not Too Rough.
 * On some console ports, including the Atari Jaguar, 3DO, and Game Boy Advance, the name is used for a different map that does not include the cyberdemon.